


Old Wood, New Seeds

by ahimsabitches



Category: Treasure Planet (2002)
Genre: A little bit of blood, Bonnie Mercatur - Freeform, Gen, Lung Cancer, That's literally all this is, Worldbuilding, a lot of that, and you can pry that from my cold dead corpse, but Bonnie is basically canon, everybody's favorite!!!, narsty stuff that, new ocs!, none of these characters are actually canon, one 35-page-long conversation, ursids
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-07
Updated: 2018-06-07
Packaged: 2019-05-19 04:26:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,950
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14866590
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ahimsabitches/pseuds/ahimsabitches
Summary: Set a bit more than a decade after the events of The Captain and the Cook, which is itself about a year or two after the events of the movie, Bonnie, who is neck-deep in her career as a planet conservationist, decides to start another project. Her research and her own curiosity about a part of her husband's past dovetail in an Ursid woman named Dahlia.





	Old Wood, New Seeds

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ravenousgrue](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ravenousgrue/gifts).



With her rifle snugged between her crossed arms, Dahlia Marling leaned on the rotten wooden beam holding up the rusty tin roof and watched the pregnant girl approach through a perpetual squint. Not many folks came down her little gravel road, not when she was the only one living on it. When they did, it was seldom a social call. But even through her hazy vision, this girl’s look spoke nothing of foreman or constable or Fed. The small leather bag slung across her chest barely looked big enough to hold a pistol.

“I en’t no midwife, girlie,” Dahlia barked, her voice raw in her own throat. “She be on Temple Road.” She pointed back the way the girl had come, back to the center of town, where she’d have been dropped off by the shuttle. Even from this distance, Dahlia knew this girl Wasn’t From Round Here. She walked too briskly. Her back was too straight. There was entirely too _much_ of her.

The girl, who Dahlia had thought was fully human at first, and young, flapped the hand that wasn’t holding her belly and waddled on. “I’ve still got two months left, but thankee.”

Dahlia hiked her eyebrows, the words rolling out before she could stop them. “Two _months_ ? Shit-on-a-stick, ye shoulda popped two weeks _ago_.”

The girl laughed, and the sound belled pleasantly out over the curve of anemic needle-leafed trees that cupped Dahlia’s cabin like a fishhook. “I wish I had,” she said, and stood at the bottom of Dahlia’s steps, her belly looming before her like a rising moon. She smiled easily despite the dusty heat, the sulfuric stink of the mine, and the loaded rifle resting comfortably between Dahlia’s flattened tits.

 _This girl’s got Ursid in her,_ Dahlia mused to herself. _Not a lot. Not even half._ But there was no mistaking the furred flip of her ears or the thickness of her nose. Or the thickness of her _bones_. It had been a long time since Dahlia had seen kin, even a halfbreed. It had been a long time since she’d seen eyes not paled to cave-blind grey and skin not chipped and grooved like the chalky white rocks among which they lived.

The girl wasn’t a girl at all, Dahlia realized; two sprays of white streaked back from her temples, threading through her long auburn braid like spun starlight. The grooves around her mouth were already deep. Despite these, there was an aura of healthy vitality around her. It was probably just the pregnancy, which she carried as well as she could.

 _Too much of her._ The thought scraped Dahlia’s skull like sandpaper, but judgment didn’t get as far as jealousy. Too much work.

The girl—Dahlia couldn’t think of her as anything else—stuck out her hand. “My name is Bonnie Mercatur,” she said pleasantly. Dahlia waited for her to announce her purpose, but she only stood there smiling a diplomatic little smile, her left hand perched on the simple but rich blue fabric of the dress that covered her belly. The rifle was warm and heavy and Dahlia liked its comforting weight against her sunken chest. She didn’t particularly want to move and disturb it. What she wanted was for this girl to leave so she could go back inside and mayhap get all of her supper inside her gob before she fell asleep in her chair this time.

“Whatever yer here fer, Miss _Priss_ , make it quick. Me shift starts at midnight ‘n it’s a’ready gone six.” Dahlia glanced up at the sky, rendered by dust the same empty no-color that the mine turned the people. The sun, neutered and bluish, hung just below the rim of the haze, where greywhite rose to a washed-out periwinkle that would turn starless black soon. The girl lowered her hand but not her smile. Her sharp green eyes unfocused for a moment, as if she were stepping away to consult with some other presence in her own head. Dahlia misliked that, but the girl refocused quickly. “I’m here to listen,” she said.

Dahlia blinked, stumbling at the edge of the girl’s unexpected words. “Eh?”

“I’m collecting stories,” she said, and dug around in the bag at her left hip. “We’re spread far and wide, we are, and... well…” the girl held out her hand. In it rested a sleek, rectangular silver device, no bigger than her first finger. A recorder, if Dahlia had to guess. The last one she’d seen had been quadruple the size, with buttons, a screen, and a blinking light. This thing only had one button, a tiny pinhole at its end, and a port at the other. Dreary sunset light lay on its smooth surface like oil. “My father died recently, and my husband’s parents are getting on. After they go, he’ll be the last of his name. Got us thinking. About our people, and how many of them are left.”

Dahlia did nothing to stop the mean curl of her lip. She dragged her most withering glare up the girl’s front to her face. It had cowed the newer miners and even put the grizzled old pickers on edge. “ _Yer_ people,” she growled.

The girl’s smile fell then and aged her ten years in half a second. Dahlia’s heart burned with vindication. The girl closed her hand around the recorder. Did not return it to her pack.

“Toddle on back t’yer ‘usband, girlie. Let ‘im console ya fer th’ loss a’yer father. Ain’t nuttin’ I want t’tell the likes o’ye, an nuttin’ I would say ye’d want t’hear.”

Dahlia expected to see anger, frustration, even pity in the girl’s eyes. But she, who stood a full foot taller than the girl despite the pronounced droop in her shoulders, saw none of those. Nothing, she realized, she could name at all. The vindictive fire in her chest winked out.

“If you’d talk about your daughter Daisy, I would hear.”

 _Thunk_. The rifle landed butt-first on the warped wooden planks of the porch, having slipped out of Dahlia’s suddenly-numb arms. She opened her mouth but nothing came out at first. “Hhhh….how…d’ye know a’ me daughter?”

“I told you,” the girl said, holding up the recorder again, “I collect stories. Of and from Ursids.”

Dahlia gripped the rifle’s barrel in both hands and squeezed. Her dark eyes were wide in her gaunt, work-wasted face. There had been only one other Ursid, one _man,_ who’d known her Daisy well enough to spin a tale worth telling. But like a picker who keeps swinging his pick despite the telltale oozes and smells, she asked the question. “Who told ye her story?”

For the first time, the girl looked uneasy. She glanced at the rifle Dahlia was currently trying to wring like a wet dishcloth. “I’d feel better if there were a cup of tea in your hands instead of a rifle when I tell you that.”

Old, rotten memories, exposed like oozing nodes of oil, began to fill her mind with their unwelcome reek. Dahlia willed herself away from pointing the rifle right between _Miss Priss’s_ pretty green eyes. “That’s answer enough fer me, girlie. Git outta here.” Without another word, Dahlia lurched around on uneven marionette-legs and pushed open the front door, which was only a warped wooden frame around a tattered woven screen. It banged like a gunshot behind her.

She stood in the bleak blue dimness of her cabin, not seeing the humped shapes of the furniture squatting like animals, not smelling the fire clawing feebly for unspent fuel in the hearth, not hearing the girl calling to her from outside. Not hearing the dull _thunk-clunk_ of the rifle falling out of her hands to the warped wooden floor.

She jerked left toward her bedroom, avoiding the kitchen chair and the narrow doorway purely on decades-old instinct. Her chest burned. Some of that was the blacklung, but some of it was memory, heaving up like heartburn, sticking in her throat and making her eyes sting with tears she shite-damned _refused_ to shed. The bedroom swam in swampy twilight but Dahlia didn’t need light to find the little box in the closet by her bed.

The little wooden box, which was no bigger than both her gnarled tree-root hands put together. The little box into which her daughter, all her life and her wild, raucous love, her cackling laughter and her dark, kind eyes, her broad barrel chest, her tree-trunk legs, her eyes which were her father’s and her nightblack curls which were Dahlia’s, her strength and her needs and her faults and her fears, had shriveled. Into which all of Dahlia’s love had shriveled.

The girl’s soft but annoyingly insistent calls reached Dahlia’s ears but didn’t make it all the way to her brain; it was taken up by the smell of the box as she opened the lid.

Whenever she came home, Daisy would bring presents. She knew how much her mother loved wooden things, so right before she’d handed the box over, she’d bounced on her toes like a child, her curls scattering across her face. Dahlia had been transported by the box. Its surface [seemed to ripple like pebbles stuck in beachsand](https://moroccanbuzz.com/assets/Products/thuya-box-mother-of-pearl-II-5.jpg), and, running her work-calloused hands over its deceptively smooth surface, Dahlia could almost hear the slow in-out sigh of the ocean. But the scent upon opening the box was not salt wind or sand or wooden cottages worn to hoary silver-grey. It was pungent and sweet-sharp, the smell of wild wood rooted long and deep in old soil, and it had broken her heart.

She closed the lid and brought the box to her lips, love guttering in her chest like the dying hearthfire. “Daisy, my Daisy,” she croaked and inhaled its scent and it socked her ragged lungs harder than the first hit of a cigar and made her heart and belly swing to meet each other. The last time Daisy had boarded the off-planet shuttle, she’d left Dahlia on her doorstep holding the box in one hand and her last blown kiss in the other one.

“Wait,” Dahlia rasped, not sure who she was bloody talking to. She spun out of the bedroom, box anchored to her chest by one bony arm, and burst back out the front door. “ _Wait_ !” she called to the pregnant girl, already halfway back down the gravel path. The girl turned and _deja vu_ nearly toppled her over. She almost reached up to grab her kiss, but no, _no_ , this wasn’t her Daisy. She shook her head viciously. A traitor tear darted down her cheek. She batted it away. The girl waddled back toward the cabin, and Dahlia saw that she was beaming.

“Changed your mind?”

Dahlia blinked. Had she? She opened her mouth; closed it. Tightened her grip on the box; tightened her grip on _herself_ . “Not cuzza _you_ , Miss Priss.”

If anything, the girl’s smile got bigger. Her eyes flicked over the box in Dahlia’s hands. She splayed a hand over it jealously. “Th’ man what told ye Daisy’s story didn’ have th’ whole thing. He c'd _never_ do me Daisy justice. Ye want 'er story? On'y I c'n tell it.”

The girl grinned so broadly Dahlia feared her head would unzip and fall off her neck. “Of course. Thank you, Miz…?”

As the girl reached her stoop, Dahlia backed into the screen door, opening it with her narrow arse, and waved away the girl’s question. “ _Pfeh_. Dinnae fuckin’ Miz me. Jes’ Dahlia.”

“Dahlia,” the girl repeated, testing it in her mouth as she glanced around the cabin. Or what she could bloody see of it, given that the sun had slipped behind the treetops. “Do you need help lighting a fire?” The girl asked, and bent with her arms out to help Dahlia at the fireplace.

She waved the tiny thing away as she’d shoo a gnat. “Git. Sit.” Dahlia pointed at the straightbacked wooden chair at right angles to her own. She did not usually get the kind of visitors who deserved a chair by the fire, but she kept it there because if you flipped it over and looked at the place where the right front leg met the seat, you'd find a single D burned into the wood. It did not stand for _Dahlia._

The girl picked up the rifle Dahlia had dropped and handed it back to her before settling herself into the chair. With the thuya box still clutched in one hand, Dahlia set the rifle back in its place by the door, banked the fire, and lit the oil lamp on the small table by her recliner. It was an ancient, swaybacked, threadbare thing, acquired from an auction of a dead miner's house when Daisy was but a cub. All the while, she was aware of the girl's eyes on her. She wondered how the girl, obviously well-brought-up and well-to-do, judged her and her sooty little cabin. If it didn't meet her standards, at least she had the grace not to wear contempt openly. Dahlia flicked the long-stemmed lighter closed, lowered the lamp's belled glass cover, and straightened, a hand braced on her hip. Pain lanced up her spine. She bit back a grunt and armed sweat from her temple. The girl gazed at her politely, a sheen of sweat glistening her brow.

“I dinna have tea.” It wasn't an apology. “There's water if ye like, but I gotsta boil it first.”

The girl waved a hand. “I’m fine, thankee.”

Dahlia nodded curtly and crossed into the kitchen, which required nothing more than five long strides. She placed the box down on the counter and pulled a battered tin cup from the dark wooden cupboard above the sink. The cloudy glass bottle was on the counter where she'd left it that morning. She uncorked it and poured a shot of the pale amber liquid into the cup. The bitter crystalline scent stung her nose but it was good. She kicked her head back and the mouthful went down like burning ice. She heaved a sigh and poured another triple shot.

And paused for a moment, one mine-dirty hand curled around the cup and one resting on the box. Was she really about to spill her darling dead daughter's life story to this complete stranger? How did she know this little girl was who she said she was? Who the blue fuck had died and made _her_ , a _halfbreed_ , keeper of a set of stories not her own?

The hand on the box curled into a misshapen fist. Dahlia gritted her teeth against the arthritis pain pinging her joints and took a breath, prepared to tell the girl she'd changed her mind again, to get the hell out of her house and scamper back to where she'd come from.

But when she turned, the girl was not in Daisy's chair. She'd moved to the window that faced the trees and looked up at them with something like wonder. Dahlia blinked, bitterness dying in her chest for the second time. The girl mumbled something to herself.

“Eh?” Dahlia asked.

Without turning, the girl asked softly, “How did you get these to grow here?”

“Th’ trees, ye mean?” Dahlia cocked an eyebrow. “Stuck th' seeds in th' ground n' chucked water over 'em ev'ry once 'n a while. How else?”

The girl turned her bright smile on Dahlia. “These are nobilis pines, right?”

“Aye.”

“They're quite rare,” she said, pressing her cheek to the smudged, warped glass like a child. “Not actually pines. Conifers. Old. Native to the Merak and Dubhe systems and...” she trailed off. “Ah, they shouldn't have been able to get so _big_ here. The soil’s too bare. How did you do it?” Her face left a ghostly imprint on the window.

Dahlia found herself damnably unable to be angry at someone who got that excited about _trees._ She brought the cup of 'shine to her lips to hide the tiny smile that grew there.

“Er, sorry,” the girl said, her smile turning sheepish. “My father was a botanist.”

They both returned to their seats. “Nuttin special 'bout them trees, girlie. Me n' Daisy planted 'em when she’s a wee cub. This place’s...” she glanced out the window. “I wanted us t'ave a little bit o' green ‘n our days, n' I's told those ones grew in th’ ‘omeplace.” She lay the hand not holding her cup on the box in her lap.

The girl nodded. “Was Daisy born here?”

“Jes' about. She's but two months when we arrived.”

“From where?”

Dahlia shrugged. “About.”

The girl nodded again, her mouth quirking with wry knowing. “What made you stay?”

Dahlia took a burning sip of 'shine and wagged her finger at the girl's bag. “If'n ye want another yarn fer yer collection, y'might turn that recorder on now, girlie.”

The girl jumped and rooted in her bag. Out came the sleek recorder. She held the button on the side down and held the pinhole end to her mouth. “Seventh June, thirty-thirty-four. Conversation with Dahlia Marling, Daisy's mother, on her home planet Cygnus-gamma.” She released the button and set the recorder down on the small table between the chairs, pinhole end pointed at Dahlia.

Dahlia cleared her throat, which became a rusty, dry cough. A brief twist of hesitancy hooked her words back into her throat, but she'd be fed through a graveler before she'd let _That Man's_ words be the last the world heard about her daughter.

“I came here 'cuzza th' promise o' steady, rich work. 'Tis _steady_ , aye, if by steady y’ mean twelve-hour shifts wid’ six-hour breaks twixt ‘em. Sometimes less, if’n they hit a good vein ‘r deposit. ‘Tis rich work too, jes’ not fer us diggers, see. I shoulda known, but I was young n’ drunk on th’ thought a’ workin’ fer a few years, makin’ me fortune, n’ takin’ me daughter t’some rich Fed planet n’ livin’ like royalty. Didnae realize how bloody-fuckin' _difficult_ work 'twas fer a woman wid a babe in arms. Fer _any_ body, really. Th' mine's… it’s hard work. _Life’s_ work, if’n ye catch me drift.”

The girl nodded.

“Daisy started workin’ when she’s ‘bout twelve. Too fuckin’ _young,_ but at least they didn’ stick ‘er right down in th’ service shafts.” Dahlia smiled bitterly. “She’s too big fer that a’ready by then. They made ‘er a boomer. There’s these huge rigs fer refuelin’ th’ machines what run th’ mine-- gennies n’ forges n’ such-- n’ they travel from site t’ site. Daisy n’ th’other whelps’re the on’y ones small enough t’shimmy out onto the booms n’ work th’ valves.”

“So Daisy traveled with those… rigs? All over the planet?”

Dahlia sipped ‘shine and nodded. “Aye. She’s a boomer fer ‘bout…” Dahlia gazed up at the ceiling, as if the sooty black spot above the fireplace could give her the answer she wanted. “Mm. Five years’re so, till she got too big t’do it. I didnae see ‘er but four times a year’r so, whenever ‘er rig’d come back t’refuel our site.”

The girl looked stricken. “You must have been worried sick.”

Dahlia glanced down at the girl’s swollen belly. Probably her first cub. “Listen well, girlie,” she said, “‘cuz this en’t gonna make much sense t’ someone what hasn’t spent their life here. On this planet, doin’ this type o’ work… life works diff’rent. Th’ rules’re diff’rent. Ye’ ‘ave yer loves, if’n ye c’n get ‘em. Ye ‘ave yer thoughts, such as are left t’ye. Ye ‘ave whatever ‘ouse ye c’n build n’ whatever property ye c’n keep.” Dahlia gestured to the trees outside the window behind the girl’s chair. “So long as yer alive. But there’s one t’ing th’ mine doesn’t let ye ‘ave.” Dahlia took a sip of shine. Sharp, hot pain knifed her guts. Ulcer. Keeping a grimace of pain off her face was second-nature by now. “Yer life. It belongs t’ th’ mine. It says where ye go. What ye do. ‘Ow long ye last.”

The girl’s face was a mask of sorrow. Dahlia pitied her.

“Th’ first day she stepped aboard that rig, I realized Daisy’s life’d belong t’the mine, same’s me. I loved ‘er, an’ _yes_ , lassie, I worried fer ‘er. But I couldnae spare much time t’dwell on it, cuzza me own work. If’n ye don’t meet yer quota, ye get punished.”

The girl’s brows drew down now; alarm became well-controlled anger. Dahlia suppressed a smile. She sipped ‘shine despite the searing heat in her guts and welcomed the beginnings of a swimmy buzz. “But I didnae ferget me dream. That’s th’ wors’ thing ‘bout all this, I think. They know better n’ t’work ye t’ death. They leave ye jes’ enough time t’ regain yer strength n’ return yer mind t’things that coulda been.” She unconsciously squeezed the thuya box in her lap. “It was too late fer me by then, but not fer ‘er. She knew it too. Once she got a taste fer travelin’...” Dahlia chuckled, “she never wanted t’stop.”

“Sounds familiar,” the girl said, and smiled.

Dahlia didn’t doubt it. Ursids were a rambling bunch. People assumed it was their nature, but Dahlia didn’t think so. She found no fulfillment in it; it was only a thing you did to keep yourself balanced when all your struts had been yanked out from under you; when the universe took your homeplace from you and never bothered to point you to a new one. But there were, of course, exceptions. Her daughter being one, and _That Man_ being another. So, she guessed, it had only been fitting that they’d found each other.

“Bot’ of us wanted ‘er off’n this godsfersaken rock. So once she’s older n’ stronger, she volunteered fer off-planet jobs. Carryin’ exports t’ th’ Cygnaut Spaceport n’ carryin’ new equipment back in. She’s fortunate enough not t’pick up me _charmin’_ _personality,_ ” Dahlia winked at the girl, “so she made friends wherever she went. Shippers n’ folks what work the docks don’t live ‘ere, s’ the mine doesn’t control ‘em like it does us. They still ‘ave choices, an’ one or two of ‘em chose t’help Daisy wiggle offa her transport rig n’ away from this ‘orrible place.”

The day before Daisy was due back from a shipping run, a sootstained little whelp had trotted past her in the tunnel, slipping something into her pocket with the practiced ease of a master pickpocket. Later, back in the cabin, she’d pulled out a folded fragment of paper so worn it was soft. Upon it, on top of other layers of faded writing, had been scratched a short, anonymous message in a hand she didn’t recognize: “GOT OUT. WILL SEND WORD WHEN I CAN. LOVE U SO MUCH MUMMA. D.”

It had hurt her to burn the message, but if the foreman had found out, he’d have called the bosses, and the bosses would’ve hunted down every soul who’d helped her and made examples of them. Including her.

“And she got away clean?” the girl prodded Dahlia gently. “Didn’t they notice she’d gone?”

Dahlia shrugged and knocked back the last of the ‘shine. She considered another couple shots, but her ulcer rose its voice against that. “Like I said, lassie, yer life belongs t’th’mine. Fer some folks that gets t’be tiresome, so they decide t’ take their lives back th’ on’y way y’can ‘round ‘ere.”

Dahlia waited for realization to dawn in the girl’s face, which it did after a little while. But instead of the reaction Dahlia expected-- horror and shock-- the girl’s face seemed to pull inward, her brows and mouth drawing together.

“Usually it’s old folks. Folks who’re jes’ about done wid’ their run, who don’t wanna wait ‘round fer th’ foreman t’ get 'em alone n' dump 'em down a shaft. But ‘casion’ly young folks disappear. Ain’t unheard of. On’y nat’r’l t’assume it, an’ I took no pains t’change anyone’s mind.”

The girl nodded, her hands resting protectively on her belly.

“They dinna’ care if miners disappear, so long’s they do it on-planet. But they _would_ care if’n it’s by escape, ‘cause if we knew we had a way off’n this planet, they’d have naught t’ run this place but th’ rocks themselves.”

“How old was Daisy when she got away?”

“Jes’ turned twenny-nine.”

“Young.”

“Aye. But she grew fast--ye had to ‘round here-- and she’s used t’ fendin’ fer herself as a boomer. Ye travel wid’ th’ rig, but yer on yer own fer food n’ shelter.”

The girl nodded, a strange knowing expression twisting across her face. Dahlia cocked an eyebrow but kept her mouth shut. Could have just been the ‘shine, now eddying in her head at a comfortable drunk. In the short beat of silence, the fire kicked up a burst of sparks. They floated across the space between them.

“So did you hear from her at all?”

Dahlia smiled then and adjusted herself in her chair, taking running inventory of the starbursts of pain in her joints as she did so. It hurt to stay in one position for too long. It hurt to move around for too long. By now, it hurt to do much of anything, including breathe. Not all the time, not yet, but just last year she’d begun to cough up clods of tarry black stuff that had once been her lungs. She’d looked at the spider-sized splat on the smooth stone floor of the mess hall with something like relief. “Aye, girlie. She came back a few times.”

The girl blinked in surprise. “I thought…”

“She’s young but wily, me Daisy was,” Dahlia said, fierce pride in her heart. “She knew how long t’ stay away s’they’d ferget about ‘er. Changed ‘er name, wore disguises, brought fake papers wid’ ‘er.” Dahlia cocked a half-grin. “One time she strolled up t’ me pretty as y’please,” Dahlia puffed her chest out and stuck her nose in the air, “as I was loadin’ slag n’ introduced ‘erself as Lady Ephigenia Atticus of Atticus Steel Holdin’s an’ would I kindly ‘ave a word wid ‘er ‘bout th’ quality o’ the steel in our transport cars.”

They both laughed then, Dahlia’s ragged and rocky and the girl’s full and bright. The fire guttered, flooding the cabin with purplish darkness. Bloody hell, had they been talking that long already?

“Here, let me get the fire,” the girl said. She, limned in sullen red ember-light on one side and weak yellow lamplight on the other, struggled to rise.

“Sit _down_ , girl,” Dahlia growled, and the chair barked with the force of her arse landing back in it. Dahlia hauled herself up, paused to let the ‘shine settle in her head, and banked the fire.

The girl wore a stubborn glare which almost made Dahlia smile. “I’m not bloody worthless, y’know,” she said, crossing her arms over her belly. “I can still _do_  things.”

“It ain’t _that_ , lassie,” Dahlia said, brushing a strand of frizzy grey hair away from her sweaty face and easing back into her chair. She pointed at the fire. “That ain’t wood burnin’ there.”

“I know,” the girl said defensively. “It’s coal.”

Dahlia shook her head. “It’s compressed coal _ash._ They scoop it up from th’ bottom a’ th’ boilers n’ smush it inta bricks ‘n give it t’us fer fuel. An’ poor fuckin’ fuel it is, but it’s free an’ so long’s the mine works, there’s a neverendin’ supply.”

This seemed to rattle the girl more than any revelation Dahlia had shared. The color slid out of her face and her jaw fell. “But...how could they… that’s _poison!_ They’re _killing you!_ ” She yelped.

Dahlia shrugged, just a minuscule lift of one shoulder. “‘Tis how ‘tis, lass.”

The girl sputtered indignantly, and Dahlia did smile this time. There was no bitterness or pity or anger in her heart anymore. Something between them had changed since they’d shared a laugh over Daisy. Dahlia would never be bosom friends with the girl, but she wasn’t half bad for a rich halfbreed with delusions of grandeur. She seemed to give an honest shit about Dahlia’s well-being, which was more than she could have said for anyone in a very long time.

“Y’hafta unnerstan’ somethin’, girlie,” Dahlia said, propping her left ankle on her right knee and ignoring the complaints from her joints. There was a new hole in the leg of her denim coveralls, and the sole of her boot was about worn through again. She ignored these too. “No one forces th’ folks what come ‘ere t’ come ‘ere in th’ firs’ place. They lie like dogs t’ get us here, aye, but we all sign these... _waivers_ ,” Dahlia chuckled. “Leastways we did when I firs’ came. I dunno of a soul who’s actually read theirs-- most folks ‘round ‘ere cannae even read, which’s why they’re ‘ere, y’see-- but _I_ did, an’ they spell it all out, clear’s day. Granted I on’y read it years later, when I’s tryin’ t’find a _legal_ way fer Daisy t’get offa this rock. They say it all. Job descriptions, work hours, rations, what sorta work ye’ll do at what age… what ye’re allowed t’ave n’ what ye’re not, punishments, rewards… _all of it,_ lassie. Even _if_ we were t’try t’petition fer better conditions ‘r form a union, which people ‘ave, from time t’time, ain’t nothin’ ever come of it. All they gotta do ‘s pull out that bloody contract we all signed, an’ alla our efforts go up in bloody smoke. ‘Scuse th’ pun.”

The girl stared at Dahlia. “You sign… they make you sign your fucking _life_ away,” she spat, anger curling her lip.

“Life’s work, as I said.” Dahlia was unsure if the girl’s anger was directed at the mine owners for asking her to sign or at her for signing. It didn’t matter. “I signed fer Daisy too, but since she’s a minor when I did, she technically hadta resubmit ‘er own wavier once she came of age. She never did, which’s why they hadta let ‘er go when they finally caught ‘er.”

The topic change worked; the girl wrestled the rage out of her system and cleared her throat. “So how many times did she come back? And for how long?”

“Four ‘r five. She never stayed much longer’n a week. I wouldn’ let ‘er. Now I wish I had.”

They sat through a few moments of smoke-scented silence. Dahlia considered going for one of the cigars in her closet, but she’d just finished telling the girl that each breath they took-- each breath Dahlia had been taking for just under eighty years-- filled their bodies with more poison than smoking five cigars at one time. But she wanted one. Oh, she _wanted_ one, even though her head was pleasantly heavy and swimmy with ‘shine. Because she knew what was coming. It sat in her throat, its own terrible kind of cancer. Not blacklung, but black _thought_. She curled a hand around the thuya box in her lap, its weight resting there like a faithful dog. The girl sat in her daughter’s chair patiently, encouraging but not pressing. Good listener, she was, Dahlia had to grant her that. She wondered how long the girl had been doing this-- collecting these stories-- and who all she’d spoken to. Maybe she would ask later, after all this was done.

Dahlia swallowed, but the black lump stayed right where it was. Only one way out, then. “She came back once n’ told me she’d… met a fella.” Dahlia resisted the urge to snarl. “It took me almos’ a day t’get a name outta her, n’ once I did I figgered out why.”

The girl smiled, the lines around her mouth deepening and her eyes positively _twinkling_.

Bright red anger whipped across Dahlia’s mind. “Wipe that grin off’n yer face, lassie; this ain’t that sorta story.”

“Sorry.” She glanced out the window over her right shoulder and spent more time than Dahlia liked fighting the smile away. It was still in her eyes when she turned back. Dahlia shot her a glare, but it did no good. Ah, no matter. She’d figure out soon enough how _hilarious_ it’d be when her own cub ignored her advice and got hurt for it. Or worse.

“Clearly, nuttin I said changed ‘er min’ in th’ least,” Dahlia said. “It only made ‘er stick to ‘im more.” Dahlia sighed. “But we were both younger back then, ‘n _stupid._ I shoulda had ‘im over here n’ told ‘im meself t’stay away from ‘er. But that wouldnae helped either, would it.”

The girl went on gazing at Dahlia, a bright grin glittering in her eyes.

\----

 _“I cannae b’lieve me daughter’s shacked up wi’ a bloody mur’derin’_ PIRATE _,” Dahlia had shrieked at Daisy, standing by her chair with a personal comm open to a holo of That Man framed by the billowing tails of his coat. Dahlia had grabbed the pillow from her chair and hurled it at Daisy, meaning to knock the comm out of her hand. Daisy, dressed in pirate garb herself, had avoided it easily, chuckling around a lopsided grin that never left her face._

_“Mumma, not alla the stories ‘bout him’re true,”she’d said and clicked the comm closed. “Sure, he’s rough ‘roun’ th’ edges, but so’m I. An’ he lo--”_

_“_ Don’t you fuckin’ lie t’me, Daisy Gillian Marling _!” Dahlia had stabbed a finger at her daughter._

_“Mumma, isnae a lie--”_

_“How long’ve ye known th’ scoundrel, eh? Weeks? Days? Even that long?”_

_“Two wee--”_

_“_ Well _then!” Dahlia had thown her arms in the air. “Invite me t’th’ bloody_ weddin’ _! Two bloody weeks, cub, that’s barely enough time t’--”_

_Daisy had fisted her hands on her hips. “What about me father, then? How long’d ya know him ‘fore I came along?”_

_Dahlia’s guts had boiled then. She’d stepped close to her daughter, by now larger than her in every way. The mine had been busy taking pieces of her away, a bit at a time, but Daisy had escaped its relentless gravity and had flourished for it. Grown, as every child was supposed to. As Dahlia had wanted. When she spoke, it was the sound of a deep cave-in, dangerous and soft. “I knew what I’s after when I met ‘im. It was ne’er love, cub. Neither’a us wanted love. He wanted what he wanted, and I wanted you. We had an understandin’.”_

_Daisy had shrugged, unfazed by her mother’s tone. “So? Me n’ John have our own understandin’ then.”_

_“Puppy love’s the_ opposite _of understandin’, cub.”_

_“I’m not a fuckin’ cub anymore, eh? Even when I was I’s doin’ fer meself jes’ fine. Ya know that.” She had taken Dahlia’s hands in hers. “Y’can trust me, Mumma. I’ll be all right.”_

_“I trus’_ you _, lassie. I don’ trus’_ him _.”_

_“I know, Mumma,” Daisy had said, wrapping her thick, well-muscled arms around Dahlia’s shoulders and resting her chin on the crown of Dahlia’s head. “But ye will, in time. I’ve told John about ya n’ about this place. We gotta plan t’ get y’ outta here. We’ll come intae lotsa money soon. Enough t’ buy out th’ whole bloody planet.” Daisy’s laugh purred in her throat. “Soon’s we get it, I’mma come back for ye. Aye?” Then Daisy had planted a soft kiss on Dahlia’s forehead that had snapped her anger in half like a winter branch. Dahlia had sighed, deflated, and gazed up at her daughter, filled to the brim and alight with something the mine had stripped from Dahlia years before: hope in the future. Love lived in Daisy too, and not just the giddy madness of first love._

_Without even realizing it, they had come to their own understanding: Dahlia had used her life to make a better, richer one for her daughter, and Daisy in turn had picked up Dahlia’s dropped dream and carried on for both of them. Dahlia had been angry because the path her daughter had chosen hadn’t been one she, Dahlia, would ever have traveled, but wasn’t that the way of things? Daisy had been of Dahlia’s body but she would never_ be _Dahlia. Daisy was her daughter, but more than that, she was mother to her own choices, bearer of her own beginnings. So Dahlia had wrapped her denim-clad arms around Daisy’s neck and squeezed, tears leaving clean tracks in the mine-dust on her cheeks._

_“Aye, lassie. All right.”_

_Daisy had let her mother cling to her for a bit longer, then had gently peeled her arms away. “A’right, Mumma, lemme give ye yer present now. Yer gonna_ love it, _” she’d said, and bounced on her toes like a child._

\--

“Dahlia? Are you all right? Need to take a break?”

The girl’s soft voice jerked her out of the past. She refocused, the ‘shine slowing the process. She waved her crooked hand. “Jes’ woolgatherin’.”

“Would you mind gathering your wool so that the recorder can hear you?” The girl smiled cautiously.

Dahlia snorted, but there was no anger in it. “I’s jes’ thinkin’ on how stubborn me girl was. Stubborn’s those trees out there growin’ in sand n’ rocks.”

The girl blew an escaped strand of silver hair away from her face. “Aye. You’d sooner change the law of gravity than you’d uncouple stubbornness from an Ursid’s genome.”

“Heh. That’s a lotta fifty-droubloon words fer a five-droubloon concept.”

“Sorry. Talking’s sort of my job.” The girl sat up as far as her belly would let her and stretched her arms over her head. “So… did Daisy come back after that?”

“Aye. On’y once more,” Dahlia said quietly.

“For what it’s worth, I’m… I’m sorry. I don’t think I’ve said it yet.”

Dahlia regarded the girl in the warm orange dimness of her living room. The sadness in her eyes seemed genuine, and Dahlia’s heart swelled against her will. She cleared her throat, which became a ratcheting cough. “She still sent me letters n’ things.” she patted the thuya box. “Th’ foremen check all th’ incomin’ mail fer cash, so if Daisy ever sent me any, I never got it. Not that I c’d do much widdit here. Th’ las’ time she visited, she gave me a comm connected t’hers s’we could clap eyes on each others’ faces. T’wasn’t good as ‘avin’ ‘er here, but… t’was…” Dahlia trailed off, choked by the memory of their last communication and a coughing fit broiling in her chest together. She tucked her chin to her chest, screwing her eyes shut and willing the cough away. Once it started, it wouldn’t stop until it had tossed out whatever glob of whatever was in there, or she had run out of strength. The girl spoke softly at the edge of her awareness. Her chest grew hot as a boiler; doubtless it was black as one. With the flip of a switch Dahlia had no hand on, her body overrode her attempts to keep from coughing. Her lungs yanked air down her throat so fast it hurt, then, as if realizing their mistake, punched it out. She doubled over her knees, coughing in great jagged blasts that were closer the rev of a transport engine than any sound that should come from a living throat. It wracked her whole body, making her legs kick spasmodically. The girl’s small soft hand landed on her bony shoulder. She waved it away and pointed to a battered steel bucket by the fireplace. Dahlia hacked until her lungs felt like a tumbleweed squeezed between two giant hands, willing her gorge to stay down, unlike it had done last time. Suddenly, she felt something globby and spiky-- fucking _finally--_ shake loose at the bottom of her chest. Smiling a little, she grabbed the bucket from the girl, turned away from her, and made a long, grateful retching sound. _Puh!_ went the lumpy red-black glob, the size of a plucked-out eyeball, into the bucket. Soot puffed up into her face.

She sagged back into her chair and sucked in a rattling, burning breath, unwilling to look at the piece of her lung she’d just coughed up. The bucket slipped from her hand and landed on the floor by her chair with a dull _clunk._ She’d forgotten to empty it since the last time she’d cleaned the fireplace, but she didn’t have the strength just now to do anything.

The girl wasn’t in her chair. Dahlia craned her head back toward the kitchen. “Hey, lass?” She croaked.

“Just getting some water,” she said, worry tightening her voice.

“Fuggit, lassie, ‘m fine,” Dahlia slurred out of habit, but swallowing was like pouring lava back down a volcano’s throat. Coppery, bloody lava.

“You’re fine and I’m the Prime Fucking Chancellor,” the girl snapped.

Dahlia’s mouth lifted in a weak smile. Stubborn indeed. The soft sound of boiling water reached her. Soon after, the girl returned with a tin cup, the twin of the one that had held her ‘shine, full of water, steaming gently. The girl handed it to her in a nest of threadbare dishtowel so it wouldn’t burn her, and returned to Daisy’s chair. She picked up the recorder, pushed the button on its end, and sat with it cupped in one hand, saying nothing, wearing no expression but gentle concern.

“How long have you been sick?” she asked after a while.

“Depen’s on what y'd call sick.”

One of the girl’s eyebrows lifted and she glanced at the bucket beside Dahlia’s chair.

Dahlia grunted. “Worst of it's come on in th’ las’ year’r so. But when yer a miner all yer life like me, lass, y' get used t' coughin up... interestin’ things.”

The girl nodded. “Did... Daisy...”

“Nah. She got out afore it got ‘er.” Dahlia smiled bitterly. The girl sighed, picking up on the irony of it. Daisy had done nothing but trade a slow death by sickness for a premature one by fire. Dahlia slurped the water, immune to its heat. Her throat and guts could not get any more torched than they already were. The lump in her chest was gone for now, but there were still things left to sick up. “Ach, where was I?”

The girl switched the recorder back on and put it back on the table. “Daisy had given you a comm linked with hers.”

“Aye,” Dahlia nodded and drained her water in four gulps, then used the dishtowel to wipe the soot off her face. “She called me one evenin’ jes’ as I’d gotten back ‘ome. No matter where she was, she kep’ track a’ th’ days here, so she knew when t’call so I’d answer.” Dahlia smiled fondly. “She’s grinnin’ like a fool when she called, so she was, an’ me ol’ ‘eart jes’ _knew_ she’d gone n’ found that treasure she’s talkin’ ‘bout, an’ she’d come n’ take me away fr’m ‘ere.

“If it meant bein’ wid’ me Daisy again, seein’ her ‘appy, gettin’ away fr’m this ‘orrible place ferever, I’s even prepared t’tolerate ‘er bein’ wid _that man._ I’s prepared t’swallow me pride n’ smile at ‘im n’ wish ‘em both well.”

The girl leveraged herself upright by the arms of the chair and held her hand out for the cup. Dahlia gave it to her and she gave Dahlia a warm, companionable smile before passing into the kitchen. Dahlia found herself liking the girl more and more. Against her bloody will. Her skyblue dress was clean and prim, made of good cotton and wool, but it held no adornment beyond the silver braiding at the swooping but not tawdry neckline, empire waist, and ankle-length hem. Her boots were simple traveling boots, well-worn but well-cared for. She wore no perfume or makeup. She kept her redbrown hair back in the same utilitarian braid Dahlia herself used. The only outward nod to wealth she could spot on the girl was her wedding ring, a band of silverwhite metal that seemed to shine with its own phosphorescence. Dahlia knew arseholes, rich and poor, when she saw them, and the rich ones were always worse. If this girl had ever been in their number, she was not now.

The girl-- Bonnie, her name was, and Dahlia grudgingly admitted it suited her-- deposited the full cup into her hands and eased back down into the chair. “My kingdom for honey and lemon,” she said wistfully.

“Aye,” Dahlia murmured, and sipped. The window over Bonnie’s right shoulder gave on inky blackness. The temperature inside the cabin had dropped some, but it would have dropped more outside. They didn’t allow the miners any personal timekeeping things; the whistles that blew across the whole planet every six hours were all the timekeeping the miners needed. But for the few hours she spent aboveground, she didn’t even need the horns. The tired sun plodding across the sky, the rate at which the heat fled the night air, and a fueling rig’s rumbling predawn arrival marked the hours just as well. It’d be about nine now. Three hours until her next shift. She hadn’t eaten or slept. If she didn’t meet her quota, she’d catch all holy hell.

Dahlia found that she did not give a fart in a rocket turbine.

She sipped her water, unable to imagine the long-gone taste of honey and lemon, and spoke in a thick croak. “So Daisy called me, but ‘er good news wasn’ what I thought it was.”

\----

_Daisy had been a mess of giddy giggles, her entire brown face filling the shaky comm screen and her grin filling her face. She had spoken breathlessly and quietly, as if she’d been hiding from something. Or someone._

_“What is it, ye wretch?” Dahlia had said, infected by her daughter’s joy. “Stop holdin’ out on me!”_

_“_ Sssshh _, Mumma, not s’_ loud _! I dinnae want John t’_ hear _! I wanted ya t’be th’ firs’ one t’know,” Daisy had stage-whispered._

_Dahlia’s own joy had fizzled a bit then. Hadn’t they wanted to find the treasure together? Why wouldn’t that man already know about it? “Well spit it out, then,” Dahlia had whispered, her knuckles whitening around the comm reader._

_Daisy had bit her lip, glanced behind her, looked back at her mother, elation escaping her in a comical balloon-squeak. “Mumma, I’m gunna have a baby.”_

_Dahlia’s heart had dropped to her boots. Her smile had dropped to an astounded gape. The comm had almost dropped from her numb hands. She’d stared at her daughter’s face until it, too, fell a little._

_“Mumma? Are ye a’right? Y’didn’ ‘ave a stroke r’ nothin’, did ya? Mum? Mum, talk t’ me.”_

\---

“I snapped that comm shut tight’s a clam, n’ those were th’ las’ words Daisy ever said t’me.”

Dahlia swallowed water that tasted like blood and watched tears fill Bonnie’s eyes. “She called me back, but I didnae answer. I shoulda. I shoulda called _‘er_ back righ’ away. Even if t’were jes t’scream at ‘er. ‘Cuz then we coulda talked through it. I coulda told ‘er ‘ow much I loved ‘er even though she’s bein’ a colossal _idjit_ , n’ how I’d love ‘er cub like me own, even though its father woulda been a _colossaler_ idjit.” Dahlia coughed a chuckle. “When I fin’ly calmed down enough t’talk sense, she didnae answer. I thought she’s jes’ angry wid me, as she had full right t’be. But I kep’ callin’ n’ callin’, n’ sh’never answered. I’s worried, but I’s used t’goin’ months widdout word from ‘er. ‘Bout a fortnight after that, I… I got th’ news.”

Dahlia’s voice remained steady and her eyes remained dry. She let Bonnie have her tears; let her cry for both of them. The mine had filled Dahlia’s lungs with dust and had bent her bones, but _it_ hadn’t been the one to drain Dahlia’s well of tears. Or the one to harden her heart.

Bonnie swiped at her eyes with a sleeve, a gesture that Dahlia found oddly childlike, and sniffed. “Sorry,” she murmured, her voice thick with tears, “Pregnancy hormones. I cry at the drop of a hat these days.”

Dahlia sipped her water. “Save some fer later, girlie. Story en’t over yet.”

“Thanks for the warning,” Bonnie chuckled wetly.

“B’lieve it ‘r not, ‘twas ‘is own mother what told me,” Dahlia said, and looked into the fire. It burned low and petulant; gave off little heat. Which was never a problem during the day, but soon it’d be cold enough to need a coat. Bonnie hadn’t brought anything with her, but there was a dirty patched blanket draped over the back of Dahlia’s chair she’d get if she started to shiver. Without taking her eyes off the fire, she continued. It hurt to speak, but now that the fit was underway, it would not end until it ended. “Haven’ th’ fuckin’ foggies’ how she tracked me down, but I’s grateful all th’ same. Still am.”

The fire found a weak spot in one of the bricks; it made a sharp crack like stone shattering on steel. Sparks, bright little seeds of sickness, floated up, lost their glow, and disappeared.

“‘Twas mos’ly gratitude t’ th’ mother what stopped me from murderin’ th’ son.” Dahlia looked at Bonnie then, whose smile was fading. “I wen’ t’see ‘im, y’know. Took me one leave o’ absence t’ do it. Couldnae said why at firs’, but now I unnerstand.” She sighed and adjusted herself in her chair again, ignoring the twinges in her hips and neck. “Back then I b’lieved...I wanted t’clap eyes on th’ man who’d taken me daughter away. Wanted ‘im t’ see _me._ I wanted him t’see what he’d done t’me. Us. But deeper n’ that-- an’ this took a lotta years afore I’d admit this t’ meself-- I wanted somethin’ t’cling ta. He’s th’ las’ person t’see Daisy alive, so ‘e was, ‘n, well…” Dahlia trailed off, her eyes on her hands on the thuya box.

“You were looking for any link to Daisy,” Bonnie finished quietly.

Dahlia nodded. “I s’pose I wanted t’find ‘er again, ‘least a shade of ‘er, an’ th’ desire t’do that was more powerful’n th’ desire t’hate ‘im, at leas’ until I act’lly clapped eyes on th’ bastard.” Dahlia smiled but it felt more like a snarl. She could not read Bonnie’s face. “Th’ man I saw lyin’ there ‘n that bed _wasnae_ a man. Th’ part a his flesh what _were_ there was fulla bruises n bandages, all lumpy… all ‘is hair burnt off… but a halfa him weren’t even there a’tall. ‘Twas like… some great beast had torn off th’ whole right side a’ ‘is body ‘n one big _chomp_ \--” she clicked her teeth together in a snarling bite and clapped her hands together in a similar crocodile-jaw motion-- “‘n there’s nothin’ but… wires n’ tubes comin’ outta that side o’ the sheets. Fer the _life_ o’me I cannae unnerstan’ _how_ ‘e managed t’survive it. Shoulda killed ‘im, but it _didn’t_.”

“Stubborn,” Bonnie whispered, her eyes large and swimming with tears.

Dahlia blew a short breath out of her nose. “Aye, lass. ‘N _damn_ us all fer it.” She sipped her water.

Bonnie’s jaw muscles ripped under her cheeks.

“Seein’ ‘im there, half bandages n’ half _nothin’_ , tubes down ‘is nose ‘n mouth, breathin’ through a fuckin’ accordion-thing, shoulda made me pity ‘im. Woulda done anybody else. But…” Dahlia shook her head, her eyes unfocused, resting on a point on the floor in front of her feet. “Firs’ it took alla me strength not t’ kill ‘im where he lay. Then it… it took alla me strength t’ jes’ stay in th’ room. ‘Cuz I knew it’s folly, but I wanted him t’ wake up n’ see me. _Fear_ me. I wanted t’see ‘im go yellow n’ cry n’ ruin ‘isself wid’ regret. Offer t’kill ‘isself fer failin’ me daughter. Fer failin’ _me_.”

Dahlia closed her eyes, not willing to look at Bonnie. _Blackthought,_ these things were, as poisonous as the coal ash fumes. But that was why she was speaking them, wasn’t it? These were the old, rotten memories, squatting in her mind like the gobs of cancer in her lungs. There were no cures for either thing, but there was relief. As ugly as it sounded.

“But ‘e never woke, did ‘e? Leastways not while I’s there. Too far gone, ‘e was. So I lef’. I walked righ’ outta that white hospit’l room what smelled like too much blood n’ sickness fer not enough cleaner, ‘n lef’ that parta me life behin’ me.”

“What part? Daisy?” Bonnie leaned forward, worry on her face.

“A’ _course_ not, girlie,” Dahlia snapped, but that rang false in the hollow chambers of her heart. She gritted her teeth against the pang and unconsciously gripped the thuya box. “Wid’ Daisy gone, I had nothin’ t’look forward t, y’see? Alla this,” she opened her arms to indicate the cabin and everything beyond, “I did fer ‘er. T’give ‘er ‘n-- heh, _‘er cubs_ \-- a better life n’ I had.

“There’s nothin’ lef t’ dream fer, so I stopped dreamin’,” Dahlia said. “I shut it all up.” She knocked a knuckle on the thuya box. “Swore t’meself that I’s not gonna think about th’ past nummore, n’ jes’ focus on gettin’ through each day.”

The fire and the lamp had burned too low for Dahlia’s rheumy eyes to make Bonnie out clearly, but the silence in which the girl sat was canny, _watchful_ , and Dahlia misliked the sensation of it on her skin.

“You blame him still,” the silence said quietly. It wasn’t a question.

Dahlia’s breath paused in her lungs. She looked hard at the blob of darkness in front of her, outlined on one side with fitful red firelight, then abruptly heaved herself out of her chair. Clutching the thuya box to her bony chest like a talisman, she tossed another two bricks onto the fire and stirred the embers until they angrily burst into life. The hot, greasy stink of coal ash filled her nose and she coughed softly, unwilling to trigger another fit. Her mind flitted everywhere but the not-question Bonnie had asked, and her knees didn’t want to bend her back into the chair, but she forced both down and forced herself to look at the girl.

In the better light, she was just the girl that had waddled up to Dahlia’s stoop a few hours before. Her eyes were green but not mean; her gaze sharp but not cutting. Just a whelp of a girl, really, carrying a belly full of whelps in front of her like a small planet. _Too much_ of her for this place, but nothing _more_. Dahlia sighed. Blackthought. Sick it up. Get it out. “Aye,” she rasped, after a time.

Bonnie nodded, glancing down at the hand on her belly.

“But it’s kep’ me goin’,” Dahlia said, holding up a knobby, hooked finger. “I'm a bitter ol’ woman, but it's bitterness what’s kep’ me alive. I blame ‘im. Aye, I blame meself too. But I had t’ cling t’ _somethin,_ ‘cause I’s too bloody _stubborn_ t’roll over n’ die a’ grief n’ shame.” She snorted a chuckle. “Before y’judge me, lass, jes’ know that we all gotta make our own way in th’ worl’, an’ this’s mine.”

Bonnie shook her head, smiling oddly. “No, I… wouldn’t presume. I’d be a hypocrite if I did.”

Dahlia jabbed her head down in a nod. It wasn’t quite vindication and it wasn’t quite relief, but something loosened the jealous fist around her heart. In turn, she loosened her grip on the thuya box.

The coughing fit and then the water had sobered her up, which was absolutely no way to be. She’d not make her quota tonight even if she were sober, and the foreman’s punishment would be a bit more tolerable if she weren’t. She placed the thuya box on the table between their chairs and hoisted herself up. She nearly lost momentum near the top, and Bonnie made a comical show of trying to bolt up to catch her. She grinned which was half a grimace of effort. What a _pair_ they were. Pray there wasn’t another earthquake or any need to move _quickly._

“Oh, stay put. I’ll get it,” Bonnie fussed.

“Nah, y’won’t, lass. I’m goin’ fer me ‘shine.”

“Oh,” Bonnie said and settled.

Dahlia managed to get her feet under her and her knees straight-- talking and coughing; staying _awake_ this long-- had exhausted her more than she’d thought. _Oh bloody well. With any luck the foreman’ll just toss me down a service shaft and that’ll be the end of that._

“Fully aware of the futility of my own words here, but… mightn’t you drink water instead?” Bonnie asked.

Dahlia chuffed a raspy laugh from the kitchen as she poured more ‘shine, and decided she did want that cigar after all. “Nope,” she said, and opened the cabinet beside the woodstove. On the middle shelf there was another wooden box, of much more meager make than the thuya box. A brittle, yellowed label clung to its cover, its corners peeled up. Two fat brown cigars nested among bundles of shredded paper she kept forgetting to wet. She hoped the cigars hadn’t dried out, but when she took one out and squeezed it, it didn’t crunch, and the heavy smoky scent still kicked her nose.

She returned to her chair with the cup of ‘shine in one hand and the cigar in the other, one of her two remaining wood matches stuck between her lips. As she expected, Bonnie’s face opened in surprise. But to her credit, she kept her mouth shut. Dahlia bit off the ends of the cigar, spat them into the fire, struck the long match on the sole of her boot, and lit it in three long, slow, easy pulls. While she did so, she watched Bonnie’s face kaleidoscope through consternation, confusion, anger, resignation, and settle on a sort of kindly grudging acceptance. Dahlia, amused, inhaled as deeply as she could without triggering another coughing fit, held it, then exhaled. The smoke pouring out of her nose and mouth was so thick she could feel it. _Ah._ She lay her head back and let the smell of earth and good smoke and home infuse her bloodstream.

“Don’t you think Daisy would have wanted you to… keep trying?”

Dahlia’s eyes opened and her smile dropped at the same time. She gazed at the sootstained, bellied ceiling, helpless to change the fact that the girl was bloody-fucking _right_ and helpless to stop the acid rise of bile in her gut because of it.

She wanted to say, “Fuck you, girlie.”

She wanted to say, “Take yer ‘igh-’n-mighty self n’ fuck outta me ‘ouse.”

She wanted to say, “How th’ fuck would _you_ know what me daughter woulda wanted?”

Instead, she said, “Mayhap,” and took a sip of ‘shine.

Bonnie said nothing else. Dahlia, eyes closed, felt the girl’s attention on her, less avid and more kindly than last time. Cloth rustled. Bonnie said, “I’ve turned off the recorder. Listen, Dahlia, I...know lawyers. We can buy out your contra--”

Quick as a snake, Dahlia snapped forward and jabbed the two fingers that held the cigar at Bonnie. “ _Don’t ye dare,”_ she growled, yellow teeth bared. “I en’t no fuckin’ _charity case._ ”

Bonnie pressed herself against the back of the chair, her hands up in a surrendering gesture. A deep red blush hurried up her cheeks.

Dahlia kept the girl pinned there a few more moments, glaring at her dangerously from under thick grey brows. Then she leaned back in her chair and brought the cigar to her lips. Bonnie lowered her arms.

“I’m sorry,” she murmured. “That was rude.”

“Aye,” Dahlia grunted. “‘Ow many other wooden buildin’s y’seen out ‘ere, girlie?”

The question took Bonnie off guard; she cocked her head. Thought. “None, come to think of it.”

“Jes’ so.” Dahlia twirled her two-fingered cigar grip toward the ceiling. “Took me almos’ ten years t’ build this shitheap an’ I intend t’die in it.” She shipped ‘shine. “I did alla this fer Daisy, so I did, an’ whatever’s left a’ her lives _here_ . Here,” she knocked the rim of the cup against the thuya box on the table, “an’ out there,” she pointed over Bonnie’s shoulder to the trees outside, “an in ev’ry log o’ this blasted cabin I had t’ haggle n’ beg n’ bargain n’ steal. Like I said afore, this is th’ way _I_ chose t’go. Do I got regrets? A’ _course_ . Am I any diff’rent n’ any other sod wand’rin’ through this galaxy? Fuck nah. ‘Least _I_ didn’ get half me bloody _body_ blown off.”

Bonnie bleated laughter before she could stop herself. “ _Ouch_ ,” she said through a grin and a giggle. “But… point taken.”

Dahlia, grinning herself, sipped ‘shine. It was beginning to work, filling her head with soft heaviness, and she let herself laugh with Bonnie. She could be an irritating little shit, but it _had_ been nice to have her here. To be around someone who hadn’t been breathing the same poison and walking the same paths in their own bloody minds for the last several decades. Bonnie, Dahlia decided, wasn’t really _too much_ for this place; this place just wasn’t enough for anybody.

The thought was a blackly disappointing one, but not a new one. It was, after all, why Daisy had gotten out. And why Dahlia had not.

Because, as she knew far too well, anger-- bitterness, resentment-- hid fear and shame. Dahlia blamed That Man, aye, but she blamed her ownself just as much. Every step of the way, she blamed herself for the path she’d _chosen_ to tread, which had led to Daisy’s death. She-- her love, her duty as mother--had not been enough to keep Daisy alive. The one thing she’d wanted in her life, she’d been unable to hold onto.

No, Dahlia hadn’t stayed because Daisy’s ghost still lived in the cabin. She’d stayed because her own, still _stubbornly_ bound to her body,  wouldn’t let her leave.

She took a long pull of the cigar and coughed, the sound like a tractor engine missing one of its pistons. Exhaustion settled like a lead coat on her shoulders and chest. “So, lass, didja get what ye came fer?”

“I did,” Bonnie said, and packed up the recorder, having gotten Dahlia’s hint. “Thank you. I’m grateful, I surely am.”

Dahlia watched Bonnie haul herself upright. “What’ll ye do wid’ alla yer stories, lassie? Put ‘em in a book ‘r summat?”

Bonnie looped the leather bag over her shoulder and smiled. “Aye, something like that. But it’ll be on the net, so all folks can read it.”

“All folks _connected_ t’th’ net,” Dahlia said, and finished off the ‘shine in one gulp.

“I’ll send you a copy. And, er, I’ll delete the part about murdering a wounded man in his hospital bed.” Bonnie winked.

Dahlia pulled from the cigar. Twin clouds of smoke jetted out of her nostrils, the smile below them small but genuine. She had no desire to hear strangers’ life stories, but the thought of strangers all over the galaxy hearing about her daughter’s life-- and hers--in her own voice was heady and alluring. Or maybe that was just the ‘shine.  “Ach, leave it in, lass. ‘Twouldn’t be me own voice widdout it.” She winked back. “I trus’ y’can find th’ door a’right?” Dahlia hooked her thumb back at the screen door. A flat black wall of darkness lay beyond it. Bonnie didn’t seem to concerned to be walking through unfamiliar territory in pitch dark, so Dahlia didn’t trouble herself either. All the wildlife had long since been driven off or killed, and all the people were either too old, too sore, too exhausted, or too busy to do crime. Good thing, too, because locks were also a luxury the miners were not allowed.

Bonnie stood in front of Dahlia, an unreadable expression on her face. This was the third time the girl had given off a distinctly _odd_ air, but _how_ odd Dahlia had no idea how to express. There didn’t seem to be any malice in it, but it was…the word _keen_ floated to the front of her brain and she seized on it.

“Listen, Dahlia, I… have a confession to make,” Bonnie said, and pulled a circular mobile comm out of her bag. As she did, Dahlia noticed an odd insignia stamped into the leather of the bag. It looked like a map. Bonnie popped the comm open, fiddled with the controls, then turned it to face Dahlia, moving closer so she could see.

The moving-picture hologram shining yellowly in Bonnie’s palm showed Bonnie herself with less silver in her hair and an infant cub in her arms. Beside her, another cub, a toddler, tugged at her trousers, begging to be held. A huge Ursid, his back to the recorder, dashed into view and scooped up the toddler cub, who squealed joyously, soundlessly. He, clearly the cubs’ father, turned to face the recorder, and Dahlia’s heart slammed to a stop.

She gaped at the holo, which looped twice more before Bonnie closed it, right before _That Man_ leaned close to Bonnie and planted a sweet kiss on her temple. Dahlia heard Bonnie’s words through a million miles of cotton. “I didn’t tell you earlier, because…well, you had a rifle and I didn’t want to get shot.”

Anger did not torch her veins this time. Her body only had room for the shock of seeing _That Man_ again, alive, _smiling,_ half made of _metal_.

Alive. Smiling. _Happy._

“So that’s why ye came,” Dahlia husked with a numb tongue.

“ _No._ ” Bonnie’s voice filled the room like the single toll of a bell. “I didn’t come for him. I came for _all of us._ ”  She slipped the comm back into her bag, and Dahlia gazed up at her, existing in a bubble of fuzzy-buzzy shock that muffled every sense. “My life’s work is planetary reclamation and conservation, which… naturally extends to those planet’s inhabitants. It’s too late to reclaim what Ursids have lost, but… at least we can preserve what we have and pass it on. Make it grow.” She glanced out the window at the trees they both knew were there, enshrouded in inky night. “Dahlia, what will happen to Daisy--” Bonnie glanced at the thuya box, “--to this place you say is all for her, when you die? When they gather up all your things and sell them off, take apart this cabin board by board? That’s the end.” Bonnie opened her hands and shrugged. “That’s the end of everything for you _and_ her. You may have given up your dream, but _she_ never did. She died trying. I don’t know her, but I doubt she’d have wanted that sacrifice to end up as nothing more than a tiny wooden box inside of a slightly larger wooden cabin destined for demolishment.”

The shock numbing Dahlia’s body, turning Bonnie’s words to so much _highfalutin_   _noise_ , slowly faded. A heavy red pit began to spin just below her heart. “If it weren’t for _him_ , Daisy would be _alive_ ,” she hissed through gritted teeth.

“And if it weren’t for him, _I’d_ be dead.” Bonnie reached for Dahlia’s hand on her lap. She snatched it away, teeth bared unconsciously. Bonnie sighed. “I know my life doesn’t mean as much to you as Daisy’s does, but… each life matters enough to be carried on and shared with other people. That’s why I came here. I showed you the holo because… because… it wouldn’t have been right, you not knowing. Lies of omission are still lies, and I’m not in that business.”

Dahlia glared at her, anger and betrayal sizzling in her chest. But Bonnie, as she’d been from the moment she’d arrived at her stoop, was immune. Which only _pissed her off_ more.

“I’m not in the business of lying to my husband either, so if he asks, I’ll tell him we spoke. But I’ll tell him he’s not to hear our interview until the whole project is finished, unless you say otherwise. He’ll respect that. If you change your mind about any of this… or if… if you need anything,” she pulled a small black card out of her bag and put it on top of the thuya box, “let me know.”

Bonnie stood there. Dahlia didn’t know what the bloody fuck she was waiting for. Even if she did, she’d be fucked by an ore drill before she’d give it to her.

Alive. Smiling. _Happy._ With a bloody-fucking _family_ he _didn’t deserve._ Dahlia jammed the heels of her hands into her eyes because she knew that sting and those were tears she shite-damned _refused_ to shed. Not in front of _her._ “Get outta here, lassie,” Dahlia croaked. “Th’ whistle’s gonna blow soon n’ I need t’be gettin’ about me shift.”

A beat of silence. Another. “You don’t want to hear this, but I think you need to.” the girl said softly. “He truly did love her. There’ll always be a part of him that does.” The girl’s footsteps passed Dahlia’s chair. The screen door squealed rustily twice. Bootsteps clunked down the wooden steps beyond the screen door, and it didn’t take long for the soft rhythmic crunch of gravel to fade into silence.

As if bursting free from some invisible bonds, Dahlia launched out of her chair and hurled the tin cup across the room. It hit the wall and clattered to the ground, the red firelight glinting off its brutally flattened side. A sound burst from Dahlia, guttural and feral, and she could no more keep it down than she could have kept down the black clots. Tears seared her cheeks as she spun around the room, filled with the whitehot wasplike buzz of rage that was really sorrow that was really guilt that was really love, all of it infecting every inch of her in a cancer far more virulent than the one that had begun in her lungs. She dug her fists into her frizzled grey hair and cried in great wracking sobs that became another lung-scorching coughing fit. Somewhere, a million miles from her, the sirens signaling 10 minutes to shift start honked. Her knees unlocked and she sunk to all fours, every inch of her alight with bright, glassy agony. She cried and coughed and retched, her back alternately dipping and arching, and watched the wooden floor beneath her bulging eyes darken with fat drops of blood, black in the firelight. She felt another lump dislodge and convulsed once more. It flew out of her mouth, landing among the fat black circles of blood like a hailstone among raindrops in hell.

For a while she remained as she was, her narrow chest heaving under the denim coveralls and shirt that had once fit her, the beginning of each inhale a whistle and the end of each exhale bubbling like a soup on simmer.

Dahlia sat on her feet, ignoring the daggers of pain in her hips and knees, leaned her head back and sobbed, Bonnie’s words chasing themselves through her mind like embers borne on a strange wind, setting little wildfires in whatever corner of her skull they landed.

_What will happen to Daisy when you die? That’s the end of everything for you and her. If it weren’t for him I’d be dead. I doubt she would have wanted her sacrifice to end up as a tiny wooden box. He truly did love her. There’ll always be a part of him that does. You may have given up you dream, but she never did._

“ _Dammit_ , Daisy, I’m sorry,” Dahlia gurgled around a bloody sob. “I’m so _so_ sorry, love. I shoulda called y’back. I shoulda called ev’n if t’weren’t enough t’ keep ye livin’. At least ye’d’a died knowin’ how much I fuckin’ _love ya._ An’ yer bloody _cub_ . I’m sorry I’m a shite mother. That I couldn’ be what y’needed. What I shoulda been. An’ now it’s too bloody _late.”_

_Don’t you think Daisy would have wanted you to… keep trying?_

“Fugyew, girlie,” Dahlia said to Bonnie’s _stubborn_ presence in her own head. She wiped the black-bloody drool off her chin, and understanding came to her on a long, rattling sigh. “Oh _hell._ I bloody diddit agin, din’ I, huh?” She asked her. “Snapped that comm down tight’s a clam on ye too, jes’ like I did Daisy.”

It was Daisy, her dear Daisy, who answered.

_It en’t too late this time, Mumma._

Dahlia could almost feel her daughter’s warm hands caressing her face, gently turning it to the small circular table between the two chairs. To the thuya box on it. And to the card on top of that.

The sirens blared again. Shift start.

Daisy’s bright brown eyes swam in front of her. Then Bonnie’s keen green ones, the ghosts behind them twining around each other in a simple, wordless directive that Dahlia’s done-in body could not ignore. She rose slowly and creakily, grunting with the effort, her knuckles white on the arm of Daisy’s chair. “ _Damn_ ye both,” she grunted, the expression on her face halfway between a snarl and a grin. “Ye’re makin’ me late fer m’shift.”

The table held a small single drawer, too shallow for much else besides paper and a pen, which was precisely what Dahlia kept there. The bosses had confiscated the comm that Daisy had given her in one of their monthly checks, and Dahlia had gladly let them have it. Too many bad memories had lived in it. She hadn’t had much need to contact anyone off-planet, and when she had, paper worked just fine. Her hands shook as she took out three small square pages of onionskin-thin paper and a nubby little graphite stick. She flopped down in her chair, placed the thuya box on her lap, lay a sheet of paper on the thuya box, and began to write, curled over her lap like a protective child. After fifteen minutes, she slipped two pages back into the drawer, one page into an envelope, scrawled the address Bonnie had given her on it, and opened the thuya box. She smiled a bloodstreaked smile.

\-----

“Enjoy your holiday, Miz Bonnie?” Finn asked, struggling to open the office door with an elbow. His hands were taken up by a double armful of mail. Bonnie struggled to rise from her desk, but the baby forebode it.

“Sweet _hellfire_ , Finn, where did all that _come_ from? I was only at home two bloody _weeks._ ”

The young wolf-eared Canid, Niobe’s grand-nephew, plopped the stacks of mail onto her large desk. John and she had built it together out of the rich mahogany that grew in the woods beyond his parents’ house, and she loved the way it smelled: rich and earthy and good. Finn cocked an eyebrow at Bonnie. “Campaign season’s coming up, Miz. Did you forget?”

Bonnie bapped her forehead with the heel of her hand. “Ugh. Pregnancy brain.”

“Uh huh.” Finn smiled slyly. “Or denial.”

“Eh, both,” Bonnie said and began to sift through the drift on her desk. Most communications went through their comms, which could be as small as pocketwatches or as large as books. But some of her older contacts and those on the outer rim where most of the PAC’s efforts were concentrated didn’t have the devices or a way to link them to the Federation’s communications network. So they still used paper-- or whatever they had.

Bonnie’s hand happened to fall on a smallish envelope that bulged with something more than just paper. No return address. The postmark was Cygnus. “Huh,” she said, and thumbed the envelope open.

“Tea, Miz Bonnie?” Finn asked from the door.

“Aye. Jasmine. Just one cup, though. Lately the cub’s favorite sport is bladderball,” Bonnie said, her eyes on the single page of thin-crisp paper in her hands. Her office door clicked gently shut. She read the letter written in smudgy graphite letters that seemed to tremble with palsy:

_Bonnie,_

_You were right. These old bones dont got much try left in em, but I can give you what I do got. I dont need the holo no more. Dont got no way t look at it anyhow. Use it for your book or give it to your husband, I dont care as long as his words aint the ones people read about her. Plant the seeds for your cubs, for green in their days, & remember my Daisy when they grow taller than the ones here. The rest of her I gotta keep with me cuz you cant uncupple stubborness from a Ursids genes, can you? _

_Dahlia._

Bonnie swiped at the tears slipping down her cheek and upended the envelope over her open hand. Three knubbly seeds the size of beach pebbles and a tiny computer chip encased in clear plastic fell out. She wheezed a chuckle. “Haven’t seen one like this since I was a cub,” she whispered, sticking the ancient holo drive into her desktop unit.

Daisy, young and broad-shouldered, moving away from the recorder to some wild adventure, sprang to golden-lined life in front of Bonnie. The holo’s edges fuzzed and crackled with age as she spun and grinned at the recorder, her round brown face framed by a twirling galaxy of crowblack curls, over and over again until Finn returned with tea.

“Who’s that, Miz Bonnie? A friend?” He asked, setting the saucer down. It clinked pleasantly.

“Maybe she could have been,” Bonnie said, the nobilis seeds safe in her hand.


End file.
